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Hello! Welcome!

This is how they are advertising for a new car. 

     I have been writing this blog for a little more than five months now, with the first blog the first week I moved to Paris. It feels like a long time ago when I think back on it, and a lot has happened. I have missed so much back home, friends getting married and having babies, holiday’s that I wasn’t a part of, family events I wasn’t there to see, and even old friends passing on. There have also been so many good things that I have gained from this experience: Good friends, meeting amazing people I wouldn’t have otherwise had the chance to meet, wonderful events in Paris, and so much more. This blog is where I have written about my most exciting adventures in the last five months, and along the way I have learned so many amazing stories from all over the world. This got me thinking about a new idea, and I have decided to make it a school project that I am doing for the University of Utah.

SKIP-ITS! I almost bought one on the spot.

     I am creating a website that shares stories from as many people as I can. Think ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ meets travel and the internet. All that I ask is that if you have moment in your travels that changed your life please send it to me at myaupairexperience@gmail.com. It can be completely anonymous. Answer, where you went? How you got there (or if there were any trails that needed to be overcome to get there)? And what you gained from this experience, then include on picture (you don’t need to be in the picture if you don’t want to be). It doesn’t need to be very long, just a paragraph. I know that might be a lot to ask, but I think it will become a really fun site to visit. I hope that others will get involved and I might be able to include a few tips and tricks as to how people have traveled. I have a few months to complete this project, but I hope that it won’t ever be completed and I will always been hearing new stories.

     Oh! I saw Les Misérables. It came out in the State over two months ago, but is just now reaching France. We all laugh over here, because it is a movie about the French, written by a Frenchman that that the British turned into a musical and was filmed by the United States with American actors who are using British accents. American movies that are shown in France have strange titles too. They sometimes keep them English, but they are simplified down. There are lots of examples, but one of the most recent ones was The Silver Lining Playbook. Here it is called Happiness Therapy. The movie industry is strange here sometimes.

I don't know how well you can see this.
It is an advertisement for traveling and it says
 "c'est East!" Which means "it's easy."
In the left corner they explain what easy means in
French. English is all over Paris. 

     Now, on to my week. Or weeks I guess I should say. I realize that didn’t write a blog for last week. That is a first for me. I always finish what I start, but somehow all it takes is one lazy day to mess up the whole pattern. Last week was an unusual week for me. There were lots of ups and downs. I wrote a blog, but I wanted to be sure that I said exactly what I wanted to say. In the end I went against publishing my thoughts. I had to remind myself that this is a public form and not my diary. This is where I tell my stories, not express complains. 

     I have learned a valuable lesson that every long term nanny/au pair experiences at one point during their job, the fine line between being a friend with the children and knowing you are hired by the parents to care for them. The hardest part is when the kids push that line. Being a nanny is hard. I have become very attached to these children, and I would do anything to protect them. The up’s and downs hit me hard. I’m sure it was a combination of a lot of emotions that were circling Aimée and me, but it caused a bit of a power struggle between us. After talking with my parents about it, I came to a solution. With Daniel, he needs a nanny. He needs someone to tell him where to go and what to do. He is happy either way. Aimée is different. She doesn’t need another parent. She has two who are there to instruct her. This week I talked to Aimée about our differences and I think we came to an understanding. After our talk, this week was so much easier to handle. It became easier to move around with the kids and get things done.

This is Aimée's wedding picture for me. 

     This week Daniel had a friend over, and at one point all the kids were running up to me asking if I could show their friend the video we made during Christmas. During the video the kids were all laughing at the faces the kids where making and Daniel responds with “I know I am just HILARIOUS!” I really need to start writing down the things that he says because he has some real good one liners. I have been dancing with the kids, and this week we were dancing to Willow Smith’s song “Whip my Hair,” and while Aimée and I were able to “whip our hair” Daniel's hair is so short that it doesn’t move an inch. Yet, he was keeping up with the music just fine.

This is what I made for the kids on Valentines Day. 

      Then for some reason Aimée decided to draw me a wedding picture. No idea where that came from, I think she read something in her magazine and it made her think of it. She turned to Daniel and said "let's plan our weddings!" Daniel was all "I don't want to do that, because I don't care about my wedding!" hahah kids. They make me laugh.

I don't know why, but this really made me laugh. 

     Sara introduced me to a new restaurant she found, and it is amazing! I am afraid to broadcast the name since I don’t want it to become the new hot spot of Paris (mwahahah! It’s all mine!), but just think bakery with just about any kind of fresh meal you can think of. It has become my new favorite place to go, and Sara and I have been trying not to go too often. If you happen to come to Paris and you want a great in expensive place to eat, send me a message and I will point you in the right direction.

     My last bit of news for this blog is very exciting. I am coming home for a week! Next week I will be reporting to you all from good old Salt Lake City. There is a break here, and the family is going skiing the break. So I have decided to take a trip back home for a week to see how everyone in the 801 is doing! Yay! Hopefully I will get to see lots of friends and family while I’m home!

     Well that is all I have for you this week. I know it’s not a lot. I’m running out of ideas as to what to write for my blog. If anyone has a suggestion they would be most helpful. I love and miss everyone back home! Until next time.

Narwhal à Paris

     Hello people of the internet, and friends who follow my lovely blog! Well I struggled with the WIFI connection on and off for 5 hours today! Yay! The family was having dinner with friends which meant that I couldn’t go sit in the dining area (the best spot to get internet). I may have gone a little bit crazy watching the computer try to “find” the WIFI.

     Well I’m here now, and it’s only 11 at night. No problem.

     This week has been a slow one. There haven’t been any BIG events; Cecile went to Milan for a few days so I was in charge of the kids a lot this week, but nothing really major. There were a few really weird things that happened, so those will be the majority of my blog for the week.

     We cleaned out Daniel's Toy closet this week. When I first got here we were cleaning this darn closet every two weeks, but now we only need to clean it once a month or longer (Progress!). If all fails, at least I taught him to be a little more organized and clean.

     Helping Aimée with her homework this week and I came across something quite funny. Aimée had to pick an animal and the action that animal does. Well the first thing on her list was a narwhal, with an action of lumbering. Her teacher didn’t know what it was. Haha very funny.

Invader is a French urban artist who pastes up characters
made up of small colored square mosaic tiles cities
across the world, then documents this as an "Invasion",
with books and maps of where to find each invader.
This is one of the best I have seen. 

   
     The other day I was at a Café having lunch before picking the kids up from school. The whole café was empty except for one other couple in the corner. There were probably a dozen or so empty tables. In walks this lady who orders her food and moved over to sit directly across from me at my table. Now I have never met this lady before, I have never seen her, and she decides to come sit across from me. She doesn’t talk to me, just sits down and starts eating. The table wasn’t very big either. After about 10 minutes another women walks in and waves at her. She proceeds to pick up her tray, thank me, and move to another table with this other woman. Now I don’t know if she just wanted company, or what was going on, but it was the weirdest thing that has happened to me this week.

     I really like my French classes. The teachers are good, the other students are friendly, and I’m learning a lot. It is bugging me a little that I have been here for almost 6 months and still I’m struggling with how to say so many simple things. I am very happy that at least I have been able to meet some amazing people through these classes and form some amazing friendships. That is what makes this whole experience worth it.

     Recently, I have had a lot of friends ask me why I have decided to stay another year. They all seem almost surprised at my choice, as if saying isn’t always the best option. It is really strange learning about different cultures of education. It’s interesting for me; basically no matter where you are in the world you learn the same things. We all learn about our countries history, we learn math, science, arts, and take our language courses. Yet, still we all end up in difference jobs, with different interests.

     After learning about the schooling of other friends, and there future job prospects, I am grateful that my parents were open minded about my interests. If I would have continued with what I wanted to be when I was 16 then I would be working a job that I wouldn’t enjoy. Why would I want to be in a job that I don’t like? Now I have a wonderful future ahead of me that I’m interested in.

I love an statue that has wings on it. 

     This week, there were some men working on the apartment. Normal fixes it around the house things, and before they left they locked the chain on my door. Well that is a bit of a problem for me when I come home. See, I don’t have a key to the front door. So when I brought the kids home for the afternoon and I couldn’t get in… well that caused a problem. The best part? The alarm goes off when I tried to open the door. Now I know that none of this is my part, but the kids don’t know that. They think they are in trouble. So they both start crying. I end up getting an extra key from the concierge, and we get inside with no problem. Not after I had to calm down two hysterical children.

     Well this is a short blog this week. Let’s hope that I get more fun stuff to talk about next week.

Have a great week everyone! Miss you!

Quel est Votre Nom de Super-Héros?

     Hello! Welcome to my weekly blog. This was quite a slow week, so hopefully I will still have enough fun stuff to talk about for the blog. I have been having a grand old time here in the City of Lights (not sure why it is called that...). I worked a lot this week, and it was sort of an ugly weather week. I guess all over the world it’s been yucky weather, and cold. Good thing the dreaded January is done, and we can get on to the love of February.

     Time is moving very quickly. The weeks are long, but the months are short. I am coming up on my 5 month mark, and before I know it I would have spent half a year living in Paris, France (which is something I can check off my bucket list!). All this got me thinking, I want to know what kinds of things you all have on your bucket lists! Send me something!

     Aimée was sick with all week; home from school, lying in the bed all day kind of sick. Of course Cecile was worried, but it wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon came around and there was still no improvement in her condition that she decided it was time to call the Doctor. Did you know that you can have a Doctor come to your house and give you a checkup 45 euros? Well that was an experience. Aimée didn’t go to school for the rest of the week, and by Friday night she was feeling much better. The down side was that the family was planning on going to Milan for the weekend to see family and couldn’t go since Aimée was sick.

My favorite place in Paris. 

     I was worried about Aimée, because the Doctor put her on antibiotics, and for anyone who know me, or my family, knows that we aren’t a big fan of pumping something that is designed to break down illnesses into your body. The good thing is that Cecile has also been giving Aimée probiotics to balance out her system. She is doing much better now and will be returning to school tomorrow (something, she is not too excited for).

     I have been taking private French lessons with a wonderful lady who Cecile found for me as a Christmas present. It is so nice to have someone to sit down and explain all my little questions about the French language. I hope that I will be able to pick it up much quicker, but it’s still very hard to do.

     The exciting new news?! Well Cecile asked if I had any plans for May. Since I work my schedule around the family, I said no and she asked I would be willing to come to Milan with them to help out with the kids! Yay! So I’m going to Italy in May!

     I have been with Daniel all week! Since Aimée has been sick I have been picking Daniel up from school. This week was super hero week. We were trying to think of a good super hero name for Daniel. He likes Spiderman and Medusa, and Spiderman and Cyclops. For some reason he didn’t like the names Spidusa or Spiclops! Kid doesn’t know a good super hero name when he hears it.

Here is an appetizer I had this week.
It's ham, pickle, and butter. It was
surprisingly good.  

     The other really fun game we have been playing is 20 questions at the dinner table with the kids. Someone has an object/ animal/ vegetable... so on so on and everyone else needs to ask yes or no questions to get to the answer. OK, so most of the time it’s really only Alain, Cecile, and me playing since the kids can’t really keep up yet, but occasionally one of them will ask a really good question.

     This week while picking up Daniel one day, the BIGGEST rain storm that I have ever been in came pouring down on me. Since I was a few blocks away, I walked in the pouring rain for a good 10 minutes. By the time I got Daniel home, I was soaked to the bone. My hair was so wet that it looked like I just got out of the shower. Daniel thought this was really funny for some reason. Let’s just say, I plan on finding a really good umbrella to carry around with me.

     I got a wonderful Valentines package in the mail from my Grandma, and the family loved everything in it! Aimée perked up when I pulled out all the stickers and treats. Since she has been really sick all week, it was nice to see that she was happy.

     I have been reading the Percy Jackson series to the kids, and we just finished book two, well at the end of the book there is a really big cliff hanger, and both kids where jumping around like crazy when we finished! They were running around asking me to start the next book so they would know what happens. That was so wonderful!

The Restaurant I ate at with Gina before
she went back home. I think this might be my new favorite place. 

     This weekend I said goodbye to a friend who was going back home after a month in Paris. I met her at Church and she is from Utah. It amazes me how lucky I have been with my friends. Some of these people I would have never met if I wouldn’t have moved here. Sara lived 5 minutes away from me, but since we went to different high schools and different churches we would have never met. I think about that a lot. The people I would have missed if I hadn’t taken wonderful this opportunity.

     I have a new project that I am going to start working on. As part of my school work I needed to come up with three things that I would accomplish by the end of the semester. One of those is keeping up with my blog, but then I started thinking that I could take it a step further. I am going to start a website about travel. It will be very similar to a blog, but I want to get more people involved. Think “Chicken Soup for the Soul” but for travel. An uplifting website filled with stories from people and their experiences working or studying abroad. I will have my own story, and I have many students/friends here who have offered to put in their two cents, so I’m going to start working on that. If you have a story, or know someone who does, I would love to get a message from you!

     This weeks title Quel est Votre Nom de Super-Héros? Means what is your superhero name? It's something I think everyone should know, especially children. Well this week has adventure written all over it, so hopefully I will have better stories in the next blog!